Drawn That Way
by LynstHolin
Summary: I don't recall ever seeing a fic about Blaise Zabini's mother, so I wrote one.


A fanfic about one of the Harry Potter universe's less-loved characters-she doesn't even have a first name in the books.

...

Hecate Williams Brawness Zabini Ingeldent Bedgegood Posonby Goldman Kindleysides had a secret love of Muggle movies. She had watched one called 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit,' and the character of Jessica Rabbit stayed with her forever after. A curvaceous, bedroom-eyed beauty, Jessica was wrongly suspected of cheating on her husband and committing murder. At one point in the movie, she said, "I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way." Hecate could relate.

Ignoring the other patrons in the beauty shop as they stared and gossiped, Hecate waited for the straightening potions to work their magic on her hair. The smell made her nose twitch. "I miss the Seventies," she sighed to the witch that was attending to her hair. "I didn't need all this horrible glop in my hair when the natural look was still in style."

"Well, styles do change."

"Hmph. There's a conspiracy of hairdressers behind it all, I'm sure." The stylist tilted Hecate's chair back and started rinsing her hair. Hecate looked up at the vaulted ceiling with its molded cupids and unicorns and listened to the enchanted harp play. Bewitching was the most expensive, exclusive salon in Diagon Alley. As the scrawny, scabby-kneed child of working class Jamaican immigrants, Hecate Williams never would have imagined being a patron of such a place. But when Hecate had started blooming into a remarkable beauty, her parents had decided that she was destined for great things.

There wasn't anything even close to a straight line on Hecate. She was all curves, with a tiny waist and a full, firm bosom that made men crazy. Her cheekbones were high and round, her lips plump, and her eyes shaped like a cat's- everything that a femme fatale needed. Her family had gone into debt to get her part Jamaican, part East End accent erased and replaced by a more refined way of speaking. There had also been dancing lessons, comportment and etiquette lessons, instruction in piano and watercolor painting and whatever else her parents had thought she might need to snag herself a rich husband. She had not even finished at Hogwarts before the first marriage proposal took place.

Barney Brawness had been a happy-go-lucky wastrel, the only child of overly-indulgent parents. Barney and both parents had died in a freak Quidditch accident (none of the three had actually been playing) a year after their marriage, and the wizarding world was full of sympathy for the lovely young widow.

With the money she had inherited from the Brawness family, Hecate was even more of a catch, and she drew the eye of one Zebulon Zabini, a handsome young man with a slightly devilish reputation. He was a bit famous, too, as the best seeker that Slytherin had ever had. It wasn't long before Hecate found herself pregnant, and then, alas, a widow again. Zeb had decided to walk home from his favorite pub one night after a few firewhiskeys too many, and had ended up taking a stroll right into the Thames.

Norman Ingeldent had seemed like a safe bet after that. Firmly middle-aged, he did not drink firewhiskey in pubs or attend Quidditch matches. Who could have known that he would trip over her beloved Lhasa Apso, Mr. Forepaughs, and break his neck? A few people grumbled that it seemed awfully coincidental, losing three rich husbands in such a short span of time. Not necessarily suspicious but, perhaps, a bit careless.

Henrick Bedgegood wouldn't trip over anything- he was safe and secure in his wheelchair. The young man had been born with a condition that kept him from being able to walk. Hecate didn't care. He was sweet and affectionate and good with little Blaise. It came as quite a shock when he disappeared into a sinkhole during a picnic on a lovely June day.

Sure that no one could be so unlucky as to lose five husbands, Hecate soon wed Philip Ponsonby. On their wedding day, his mother stood up in the church and begged him not to go through with the wedding, but he was besotted with her. They had barely finished with their honeymoon when he was blown off a cliff by a sudden gust of wind.

The gossip started in earnest then. Mortimer Goldman had ignored it, eloping with her to Tahiti. Shortly after their return, he had been strolling near the London Zoo around the same time that Muggle animal rights activists liberated a gorilla, a tiger, and a hippopotamus. It was the hippo that got poor Mort.

Andy Kindleysides was a bit simple. There were those that said Hecate took advantage of that. But he was loving, and didn't believe that she had anything to do with her previous husbands' deaths, and that was enough. At least, it was until he ate some Thai take-out that Hecate had brought home and promptly died of a peanut allergy. A peanut allergy! Hecate had never heard of such a thing, and if only his bloody mum had told her about it!

The Ministry received so many owls over it that she had been investigated and interrogated until she almost started believing that she _was _guilty. But veritaserum proved that she was innocent. Not that it stopped the wagging tongues.

"All for the money," she heard an old biddie whisper, and she had to work to remain calm. It was the rest of the world that thought money was so damned important. She would give all of her considerable fortune to have any one of her husbands back. Not for the first time, she wondered if she had been cursed.

A jet of hot air from a wand dried her smooth, silky tresses. Checking the clock on the wall, she saw that she had plenty of time before the Hogwarts Express arrived at the station. She could do some shopping, perhaps pick up Blaise's favorite strawberry pie. It would be nice to have her son home for the summer; alone in the mansion she inherited from Andy, she got so lonely. And it looked like she would remain that way, as most wizards wouldn't look her in the eye, much less date her. "You're done," the stylist said.

Hecate got up out of the chair and examined her hair in the mirror that stretched all along the back wall of the salon. She knew she still looked good, much better than most girls half her age, but her beauty now frightened and repelled. Heaving a sigh, Hecate realized there was only one thing to be done: she was going to have to start dating Muggles. "No shame," a woman with the figure of a pigeon hissed.

Hecate walked over to the woman and stared at her until she turned red and looked away. "I'm not bad. I'm just drawn that way," Hecate said. The woman sputtered as Hecate walked out the front door and into Diagon Alley. Yes, she would get Blaise a strawberry pie, and they would spend his first night back home talking late into the night. He had important news to tell her, and she was sure it was about a girl. _If there is a curse_, she silently prayed, _please don't let it be passed on to my son_.


End file.
